“He abused me, he defeated me, he robbed me”: the hatred of them, who harbour this though, is not appeased.

If you bear hatred in your heart, it will always be in your heart.

Earlier verses talked about changing the internal rather than the external. So I suppose the idea here is that if hatred is within you, nothing outside will appease it. It will always be in there. It goes unsaid, but I suppose the corrosion must remain even if you can get revenge.

I remember reading an old story as a child, about Senerat Bandara. He helped the King put down a rebellion or something and one offending official and his family were captured. Senerat was in the crowd as the wife and child were brought out and killed and the offending minister was torn in four directions by elephants. He had felt like he was serving and fighting on the right side, but at that moment he didn’t feel good at all. He was not appeased. He left and became a monk.

Honestly, a lot of people wouldn’t mind seeing their enemies quartered be elephants. Just today I saw a message from like an eleven year old saying they’d like to kill all of my staff for publishing a react video. It’s out there, and the assumption is that vengeance will scratch that itch. The itch of hatred.

Given the first assertion, that all states have mind (or brain) as their forerunner, it follows that a chill mind begets a chill life. If only the process for obtaining such a thing were not so difficult.

For example, today I had to let painters into the house, work on a proposal, make sure everyone else is working, and I forgot the keys that give me a private place to meditate. So I haven’t even meditated on this yet. I’ll make it up in the evening I promise. But it just goes to show how much the world demands that we speak and act now and gives little space for sitting back and pacifying the mind. Or maybe that’s me and I could just sit under my desk. Of course it’s just me, that’s what the verse says. See how easy it is to attribute control to external things?

Anyways, note that the word is pacified mind, it’s not that you need to think a certain way or believe certain things, it’s just that your mind is pacified. Which makes me think of still, or calm, though the Pacific Ocean is actually a bit rough.

I also love the idea of happiness following you like a shadow. I looked at my shadow a bit after I read this. It’s not there all the time though :(

I suppose the idea is that inner peace creates outer peace. The trouble is that the outer world is so demanding and we get such immediate feedback from meddling with it. I think the Buddha would say this is a futile task. It feels easier in the short term, but doesn’t relieve suffering in the long term. But that really has to be your goal, and it’s quite literally not the way of the world.

]]>0indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=201552016-12-06T06:00:03Z2016-12-05T10:47:00ZI’ve started reading a verse of the Dhammapada every day before I meditate. As I do it, I thought I’d share some thoughts here. For reference, the version I’m reading is E.W. Adikaram’s translation.

In order to write about it, I’ve gone back to the beginning. This is the first verse of the Dhammapada:

All states have mind as their forerunner; to them mind is supreme and of mind are they made.

Therefore, if one, with defiled mind, speaks or acts, on account of that does suffering follow one as the wheel follows the foot of the wagon-bearer.

Let’s unpack this:

All states have mind as their forerunner; to them mind is supreme and of mind are they made.

The first part of this is objectively true. Everything that happens to you actually is a sensation created in your brain. All pain, joy, boredom, anger – everything. Everything you feel may be influenced by the outside world, but it’s ultimately created in your brain.

I can say this is ‘objectively true’ now because humans have developed the science to look inside the brain. You can understand it relatively easily because we have computers as a shared metaphor. 2,600 years ago, however, this insight of the Buddha’s was quite revolutionary. Honestly, it still is.

As much as I logically accept what he’s saying, I still very much feel like the world is causing me to feel things. I feel like my anger, my fear, my joy – they come from outside. I can know that these sensations are created by my brain, but the connection is so instant and strong that I don’t perceive it.

And honestly, try to tell someone with glass in their foot that ‘it’s all in your mind’. They’d be like, ‘no, it’s in my foot!’

But let’s take this as truth that feels false and move on to the next part:

Therefore, if one, with defiled mind, speaks or acts, on account of that does suffering follow one as the wheel follows the foot of the wagon-bearer.

The ‘therefore’ in this verse is where you get into the Buddha’s hypothesis. If you purify your mind (in ways to be explained) you will be free from suffering. Nirodha, the third noble truth.

It makes sense, but I don’t know what’s meant by ‘defiled’, nor is there a clear definition of ‘suffering’. Yet. It’s only been one verse.

The basic premise I think I get. If you start with a bad perspective, everything you see will be bad. If you start with a defiled mind, your speech and actions won’t help. Indeed, they’ll make things worse.

This is the struggle, and the path. Other religions or even self-help books give you the option of faith, or following a few steps, or joining a community. The Buddha is like, ‘no, your whole mind is a mess, we need to fix that’. Which seems like a lot of work.

]]>0indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=201442016-11-04T11:28:28Z2016-11-04T11:28:28ZPeople ask what does someone need to create a start-up or succeed in life (as if I’m an example, but nevermind). What I usually answer is to be born rich. Seriously, it’s the best.

I wasn’t born rich, or at least I didn’t feel that way. In the wealthy American community where I lived I often felt like I had much, much less. Only after leaving there and going about did I realize that I was indeed wealthy. And, of course, by that point my parents were older and earned more, and I earned also.

I was able to start a business and try blogging and learn photography and all these things because I wasn’t hungry and my parents helped me out. I’ve been working since I was 14, everything from McDonald’s to busing tables to telemarketing, but I’ve never had to work to survive. And it’s better. I could explore, take longer to develop, do stuff of occasional use to society, fail, and generally not be miserable.

Why should this opportunity not be available to more people? That’s why I think I believe in a right to basic income for everyone. And why I think Yanis Varoufakis’s idea – The Universal Right to Capital Income – is worth exploring.

Spoiler alert, but here’s the last paragraph:

Anyone still not reconciled to the idea of “something for nothing” should ask a few simple questions: Would I not want my children to have a small trust fund that shields them from the fear of destitution and allows them to invest fearlessly in their real talents? Would their peace of mind render them lazy layabouts? If not, what is the moral basis for denying all children the same advantage?

and the first:

The right to laziness has traditionally been only for the propertied rich, whereas the poor have had to struggle for decent wages and working conditions, unemployment and disability insurance, universal health care, and other accoutrements of a dignified life.

Broadly, I can’t see much to argue with there. Rich people have had the ability to be lazy, or to invest in new businesses, or to create art, or to do social work, or to raise children or care for others. If we have the means, why not extend those opportunities to more people?

Just think about it. If you have 20 million rupees you can put it in a fixed deposit and get an income of Rs. 200,000 per month. What have you done to deserve this? You had money in the first place. Capitalism!

What Yanis proposes is not taxing productive labor to create this income pool but rather allocating capital (taking shares of every IPO) and using dividends to pay a universal income.

A simple policy would be to enact legislation requiring that a percentage of capital stock (shares) from every initial public offering (IPO) be channeled into a Commons Capital Depository, with the associated dividends funding a universal basic dividend (UBD). This UBD should, and can be, entirely independent of welfare payments, unemployment insurance, and so forth, thus ameliorating the concern that it would replace the welfare state, which embodies the concept of reciprocity between waged workers and the unemployed.

This implementation may be nuts, but something similar seems necessary. With robots and automation more and more work will be done with less and less people, and more and more returns for those that hold the capital. Why not have those that hold the capital be the people, and have them get paid out of it?

Giving people cash directly literally lifts them out of poverty, and something like this could replace horribly inefficient welfare programs and other administrative ideas that have huge overheads in trying to solve social issues. Just give people money and let them spend it in more efficient markets to meet their actual needs.

Yanis addresses the ‘moral’ objections to this (the value of work, etc), but if we think of all people as our children then why wouldn’t we want to give them some basic level of dignity from which they could pursue their dreams without worrying about suffering or going hungry, etc.

Before inequality tips everything over, why not?

]]>1indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=201342016-04-19T06:18:16Z2016-04-19T06:18:16ZFor all the US Republican tirades about being tough on ISIS, they’re missing the best thing they could do. Take in refugees. As many as possible. Welcome them in. That’s how you actually hurt ISIS.

ISIS as the Islamic State depends on having a population to tax, recruit from, and to lend it legitimacy as an actual state. 50% of their revenue comes from taxation and confiscation. The other chunk (43%) is from oil sales, which is already fucked (Reuters). If you take the population away, they have nothing. Perhaps more importantly, if people are fleeing, they have less and less legitimacy.

Now people under ISIS control have declined from 9 million to 6 million. Which is a good thing.

The West complains about refugees but gets all excited about dropping more bombs on people and committing troops. It’s insane. In this case helping people escape ISIS is the way to weaken then. As Sri Lankans should know.

At the end of our fight with the LTTE, another brutal terrorist organization, the most important thing was getting hostages out of LTTE controlled territory. The most important thing long term is still reintegrating them. It seems like the West would somehow prefer to bomb them into oblivion, but if you’re looking at it purely strategically, the refugee crisis isn’t a problem, it’s an opportunity.

People are voting with their feet to get away from ISIS. If you want to defeat ISIS, the best thing to do is help those people out.

]]>5indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=201242016-03-09T09:29:18Z2016-03-09T08:59:15ZI recently got a letter from our Company Secretary stating that we owe the government Rs. 60,000. For existing – just for having a registered company. The government has also introduced a Capital Gains tax (tax on profits for sale of shares or property) and they’re increasing VAT and income tax. Basically, taxes are rising, in a way that affects all of us directly.

Bribing State Employees: Ranil et al gave state sector employees a Rs. 10,000 raise. Given that we have over a million such peeps, that’s over 10 billion in added costs – every year. This was basically a bribe to win their votes, but one that we’ll have to keep paying forever.

Giving In To Anyone That Protests: The budget had stuff about reducing car permits for MPs and Doctors and other special interests. However, anyone that protested got them back. Thanks GMOA, always looking out for yourself!

Dodgy Bond Market: The dubious Central Bank Governor’s indubitably dubious son-in-law made a killing on one bond deal that caused a scandal but that company Perpetual is still involved and is now sponsoring a CB roadshow in Singapore. There is weird stuff going on in the bond market that hurts the country.

What’s Wrong

What’s wrong is not necessarily the taxation. Our revenue base is low and that needs to get fixed, IMF demands or not. What is wrong is that all of this stuff should have been in the budget. Instead that bum-wipe of a document was torn apart until only commas and spaces were left.

What drives investment and business is a good policy environment yes, but above all a predictable one. Sri Lanka now has an environment where policy changes dramatically on the daily and where even retroactive taxes can be imposed. Not even the past is predictable. This is fucked.

What To Do

Honestly, I think that if a Finance Minister can’t pass a coherent budget you should get a new Finance Minister. If a Central Bank Governor is involved in scandals that cause a loss of confidence, you should replace them.

I also think that the government has to stand up to vested interests in the money-losing part of the economy (ie the state sector), even if they protest. And the government really needs to look at itself.

Reform State-Owned Enterprises

State owned enterprises like SriLankan Airlines and the Petroleum Corporation lose BILLIONS every year. Petroleum at least delivers something useful, but why have we lost $90 billion over the last five years on an airline? That’s effectively a subsidy going from the poor to the rich people and foreigners that fly. I mean, why? Sell it or don’t have a national airline.

Reform The Public Sector

We also have a public sector where we pay for people to be educated (badly), then pay for them to work in the government sector, then pay them pensions. It’s unsustainable and terrible for the economy. There’s an entire class of people (politicians, government doctors, state employees) that don’t pay taxes and can buy cars and who will protest vehemently if they’re indulgences are given away. Not to mention fertilizer subsidies for unproductive farmers.

Reform Themselves

This government is still spending on car permits for MPs (and PCs and government employees), they’re still spending millions refurbishing their own residences, and there’s still too goddamn many of them. We have 83 Ministers of some sort, they have God knows how many cars, etc. I recently heard of someone in the civil service involved with these financial problems who’s getting 6 bathrooms redone in their public residence. I mean, fuck off. If the whole country is going to share the burden it should start with these guys.

Instead of addressing these major (and admittedly government toppling) issues, the government is instead taxing the productive part of the economy.

Seriously, they should sell off or close money-burning state-owned businesses, cut unproductive government jobs, sell off government properties and land and get their own house in order. As it is they’re randomly imposing taxes on the private sector and completely spooking investors.

The national anthem issue was weeks ago but I’m commenting on it now, in the video above. Broadly – if you don’t have four minutes to watch a discussion that includes the Macarena and Crazy Frog – people should live with an anthem in multiple languages (like Canada, Switzerland and South Africa have). The point of the video is that a bilingual song is what Sri Lanka has always had, but what I don’t discuss is why. I’ll do that here.

Why?

Tamil-Speaking People Live Here

The national anthem we have is a beautiful song saluting and expressing devotion to Sri Lanka. We should ideally have as many people as possible singing it AND understanding what they’re singing. Because the words mean something. I mean, honestly, why would you not want Tamil-speaking peeps expressing loyalty to Sri Lanka?

Some people want them to sing a song they don’t understand as a sort of tacit acknowledgement that this is a Sinhala state, but guess what, it isn’t.

Tamil speakers do live here (Tamils and many Muslims) and if our country can include them, so can a song. We’re not like South Africa where we have to sing it in multiple languages even, we can just do two. Hell, the Canadians have English, French and Inuktitut. The Intuit (eskimos) are unlikely to stage an armed insurrection anytime soon but the Canadians still include them. Which brings me to the next point.

The War

Hey, remember that? It sucked.

We won the war by brute force, but this requires far too many rocket launchers for the long-term. Anything we can do to make people feel welcome and included in this country is great. This is not selling out the sovereignty of the Sinhalese people, because the Sinhalese people aren’t sovereign. Sri Lankans are.

When Quebec wanted separation from Canada, Canada responded by making French available everywhere and creating a country that really could accommodate both communities. In Sri Lanka we have laws like this on our books and we should follow them. The national anthem in Tamil is honestly the least we can do.

It is important to remember the war and do whatever we can to prevent another one, namely, being nice to each other.

Why Not

My final point about the national anthem is, why not? How does it hurt any Sinhalese person to hear the anthem in Tamil? It just doesn’t. It’s a tiny accommodation, it’s not even a new policy, and it shouldn’t really be a controversy.

]]>3indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=200982016-02-10T05:07:56Z2016-02-10T05:07:56ZI’ve been doing this weekly show on an almost weekly basis now. The latest one covers Yoshitha Rajapaksa’s recent arrest (for money laundering connecting to the TV station CSN). You can watch it here:

My broad point here is that the days of political sons being above the law should be over and that it’s fair that Yoshitha is facing trial. During the Rajapaksa time a lot of people operated like they’d never be out of power, which inevitably leads to corruption. It also led to stuff like CSN, where Yoshitha was obviously getting involved with a TV station and where there was obvious dodginess regarding at least the allocation of rights to broadcast cricket.

The law was changed to allow any sports TV station to bid on rights (which was partly why MTV was randomly renamed MTV Sports) and yet CSN won certain cricket rights unopposed. It was also especially unusual that Rupavahini didn’t bid. Furthermore, the CEO of CSN was also the Secretary of Sri Lanka Cricket (Nishantha Ranatunga). When people pointed out that this was a conflict, the response was that the Sports Minister OK’d it, so it was OK.

All of this displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of governance and ethics. The logic seemed to be that if certain people (the President, Ministers) approved of something it was fine, even if it was illegal. This of course isn’t how the law works.

When the government changed so did those people and people like Yoshitha were exposed. This should be done, which is why the work of the Financial Crimes Investigation Division is nothing to dash coconuts at.

But anyways, watch the video.

]]>2indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=200882016-01-20T07:14:49Z2016-01-20T05:17:57ZPeople are freaking out about a trade agreement with India that would allow IT professionals to work (relatively) freely across the border. The main argument seems to be that INDIANS ARE COMING and that they’ll steal our jobs. I think they’re wrong. Open borders and immigration are an ethical and economic good. If we want Sri Lanka to be globally competitive, we need to free the labor. India is just a start.

Singapore Or North Korea

The question is really whether we want to be like Singapore (40% foreign population) or a closed economies like, say, North Korea. Singapore thrives by offering open doors to skilled workers and they are able to attract the best talent, and create the best economy for their own workers.

They of course couple this policy with wage requirements (people earning over $1,800 can apply, people earning over $2,500 can bring their family) and an education and social system that really helps their people. I do agree that the government needs to do a lot more to improve our education system (including perhaps getting us access to Indian schools) and support for our own people (payment gateways pls). However, opening up immigration will still make our companies more competitive.

Global Competitiveness

The main question is whether you want to create globally competitive companies in Sri Lanka. Globally competitive companies get the best people for the job, period. The current CEOs of both Microsoft and Google are Indians because fuck it, win. The major economies in the world thrive on immigrant labor – the US, Canada, UK, Singapore, etc. The only sorta exception is China, but that’s a world unto itself.

Sri Lanka doesn’t have that option. We need to bring in the best and yes, if needed, the cheapest labor for the job. We have to get out of this mentality of this is the only pie we have and we just need to keep dividing it. Just GROW THE PIE. If we get internationally competitive companies we can create many more jobs, have many more people spending into the economy here and we can have a much bigger and better economy for everyone.

Good For Goose, Good For Gander

And, honestly, Sri Lankans complaining about immigration is a bit rich. We have almost 2 million people living or working abroad and we personally feel like we deserve work visas for wherever we want to go. And we do, because our labor adds billions of dollars of value to economies all over the world. We’ve had Sri Lankans at Facebook, at NASA, and at major companies all over the world. Those Sri Lankans didn’t take jobs away from those countries, they helped grow their economies to create more.

No One Has To Hire Indians

What opponents of free labor between here and India cite is articles showing PhD graduates applying for a peon’s job or generally statistics that there are millions of unemployed in India. But this makes no sense.

It’s not like workers are some monsoon that comes crashing down on our shores. Firms have to choose to hire people. IT firms are doing this already under the BOI. This just makes it simpler, more transparent, and less dependent on bureaucratic whims.

And this also makes it easier for Sri Lankans to work in India. This means that our IT professionals won’t be limited to working for Virtusa or WSO2 or whatever – they can easily apply to FlipKart or Zomato (grrrr) or any number of world-class, billion dollar Indian companies.

The Human Aspect

It is also important to remember the human aspect, which is that people should be able to move and work where they best fit. I personally think that opening up to India is only one part of the puzzle. Sri Lanka needs to open up to the world. For a long time we have been closed and our best talent has been flowing abroad. We need to reverse that and attract the best talent here.

The question is whether you want to keep dividing up what we have or make our economy a global powerhouse – like Singapore but better. If you have big dreams you need to take little risks to make them happen. Opening up free movement of labor with India in the IT industry is just the first step. We need to do more.

]]>51indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=200822016-01-18T04:39:55Z2016-01-18T04:39:55ZSinhale is a sticker and a word, which shouldn’t be that bad. However, given Sri Lanka’s recent history with racism and war, it quickly brings to mind pitchforks and war. In the video here I did a one-take on it for YAMU’s new Weekly Show:

I won’t repeat the script here, but suffice it to say that the Sinhale movement isn’t necessarily racist, but in practice it is. Especially online, it’s tied up with the usual racist bullshit (think BBS) – ie, Sinhalese great, Muslims bad, this is a Sinhala country, etc. There are a lot of wonderful things about Sinhala culture, but this parochial racism isn’t one of them. We’re an island people and we evolved by taking the best of other cultures (Buddhism, chili, cricket) and making them our own. We have also co-existed with different types of people for basically ever.

Thankfully, the Sinhale scene doesn’t seem that big (right now). It is more decentralized than the BBS and has far no government support. As I point out in the video, the positive messages on our streets are winning, for now.

]]>3indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=200472016-01-04T12:04:23Z2016-01-04T12:04:23ZHere are a few examples of how our vaunted Yahapalanaya government has sucked over the last year.

If you are wondering whether I have buyers remorse, I would say no. These guys are better than the last guys. Unfortunately, they still suck. In detail:

1. Bros Before Telcos

In one of his first moves, President Maithripala Sirisena appointed his brother as head of Sri Lanka Telecom. He was more qualified than some of the numpties that follow, but it was still a bad signal. Worse as controversy emerged over a bloated SLT offer to buy Hutch.

2. The Bond Scam

In February, the Central Bank Governor’s son-in-law made a killing buying a lot of bonds at a very high interest rate. Basically, the son-in-law seemed to have information no one else had, but the Governor denied everything. Given that part of his job is being trusted, he should have, but Arjuna Mahendran has stuck around. And the UNP seemed to have plenty of election dosh. Possibly unrelated, but the whole thing stunk like a week-old fish.

3. Ravi In Finance

Despite not being a high vote getter (placing behind Harsha De Silva for example), Ravi Karunanayake has something over Ranil (loyalty, cash, I dunno). He was given the Finance Ministry, which is a bit like the fox in the henhouse, IMHO. Ravi has been indicted for financial crimes (but cleared… after his appointment) and beyond that does not have a stellar reputation. His first proper budget (last December) was amended into non-existence. Also, people he appointed have refused to step down when Ranil wanted them too. And any number of things we don’t know.

5. Hirunika The Criminal

Following in her father’s footsteps a bit, MP Hirunika Premachandra decided to abduct a shop clerk involved in some love affair. She admits to giving him a talking-to but insists that she’s not guilty because she didn’t physically abduct the guy herself. The police seem to be taking her at her word on this dubious logic, when in fact she should be arrested like anyone else.

6. Cricket Crooks

Recently (2016 really but whatev), Thilanga Sumathipala was elected as President of the Cricket Board. He comes from a background in gambling and was convicted of getting a false passport for a known underworld criminal in 2007. At that point he lost the Presidency at the Cricket Board and, despite being acquitted on appeal, no one thought he’d be back. Especially since the lead witness in the trial was shot in court – some horribly gangster shit. But he is back, in charge. What?

This you can’t really lay at the feet of Yahapalanaya, it being an internal election among some seemingly awful people, but this government did put this guy on the National List after he lost the Parliamentary Election, and made him Deputy Speaker of Parliament no less.

So, in sum, that’s all the bad governance I can vividly remember from this year. Tell me if you remember anymore.

]]>9indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=200332015-12-23T05:43:39Z2015-12-23T04:43:40ZThe closest analogy to ISIS is probably Sri Lanka’s own LTTE. Not in terms of religious zealotry or gleeful brutality, but in terms of being a terrorist group that controls land. It’s a rare phenomenon that bears comparison.

LTTE

The LTTE, at one point, controlled 76% of the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. They had a police force, media and controlled check points in and out. They also murdered any opposition and relied on violence to cement power, much like a state does, though being young they had to apply it much more often.

The LTTE was a terrorist organization in that, well, they basically invented modern suicide bombing and a range of innovative terrorist tactics. You could say this was the only way they could defend what they wanted (a mono-ethnic Tamil state) against shittily democratic Sri Lanka, but they were undoubtably a terrorist organization in the modern sense of the word.

ISIS

ISIS or ISIL or Daesh or whatever is an evolution out of Al Qaeda in Iraq, feeding off the instability there and in Syria. Whereas the LTTE actively created the absence of a state, ISIS just filled a void as states collapsed. American clusterfucking of Iraq and climate-change (drought) induced collapse in Syria created a gap that they just filled.

What they filled it with is something they call the Islamic State, though both labels are debatable. Broadly they suck, but they also provide services and a quasi-monopoly of violence in the territory they control.

Both Sucking

What ISIS and the LTTE have in common is that both are/were awful, in that their fundamental premise is wrong. Both groups are about the mono-ness, that is, being one ethnicity or religion.

For modern states that’s basically incompatible with individual rights. ISIS is about everyone being one brand of Islam and the LTTE was about everyone being Tamil. Both have some allowance for minorities (the jizya tax or vaguely being allowed to exist under the LTTE) but the basic foundation of each ‘state’ is discrimination. Which is not cool.

Defeating Both

What both the LTTE and ISIS do is create a semi-monopoly of violence in territory they control. That’s the basic function of a state, which is what makes them sorta states. It’s what makes them appealing to the people that live there, the alternative being chaos.

The way to defeat them is to take that semi-monopoly away and replace it with another order (ie, another state). Sadly, in Sri Lanka this was done through violence.

The way to defeat terrorist states like this is to shore up the actual state and let it re-assert a monopoly of violence. In Sri Lanka that meant the Sri Lankan government and military re-asserting territorial control, painfully, and continuing to maintain a military presence in the North and East. Where there are ethnic lines this is problematic. The Sri Lankan military is mostly Sinhala and the previous government was a bit racist, so the situation is flawed at best. Giving the actual state a monopoly of violence, however, is the only way to defeat the terrorists groups trying to control the same.

Regarding ISIS, this would mean shoring up either the Iraqi or Syrian states and helping the assert control. The trouble is that the Iraqi Army is shambolic and corrupt, whereas the Syrian regime is more straight-up evil. They make Mahinda’s government look like Canada.

That, however, is the only way to actually defeat ISIS. There is another option, which I think America should follow, of actually taking over the places they invade and making them states in the American union, with voting rights and all. Current American policy seems more geared towards feeding their military industrial complex, that is, blowing up all the munitions and gear they buy from suppliers, ie, playing with all their toys, at the expense of lives.

At some point just randomly bombing land is not going to do it. To defeat a terrorist state you have to support some other state. Unlike in Sri Lanka, however, there is not a (comparatively) decent state to take control. The choice in Iraq and Syria is to support at best corrupt and at worst despotic and murderous states. To defeat ISIS, however, that may be the only choice.

]]>12indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=200262015-12-22T04:31:23Z2015-12-22T04:31:23ZTraffic has been wonderful these days – because schools are closed. Couldn’t we have traffic like this all the time?

As a visual, here is traffic when schools are closed:

And here’s traffic on a typical day:

Those red and orange marks are sadness and despair.

How To Have This All The Time

It’s pretty simple. School buses. Right now parents (or more often drivers) pick their kids up in private vehicles. So they drive, park on the sidewalk, and then take home creatures that actually occupy very little space. It’s a mess.

Right now they park buses in front of Visakha (near where I have lunch) but I never see kids in them. And people do take school vans, but they’re hot and dodgy and best avoided.

What I’m suggesting is nice buses – like the ones we put tourists in – that take students to bus stops in various hoods (Nugegoda, Battaramulla, whatever). Like packet switching basically. You take batches of kids out of the schools and drop them off nearer their homes, where parents can pick them up, or they can just get a PickMe or whatever. Kids can get picked up to school at the same locations.

We have got to move away from private vehicles for as much stuff as possible. The best place to start is with schools.

Alternately, send more people to Hogwart’s.

]]>2indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=200042015-11-23T16:55:16Z2015-11-23T16:55:16ZI enjoy reading the news, but ISIS has ruined that for a week now. All the stuff I read is 70% ISIS and contains 0% new information. At this point it’s honestly just advertising. Which is how this whole terrorism thing works. Terrorism is a media phenomenon more than anything.

The West, also, has not been inoculated by its experiences in the past. In 2001 9/11 worked brilliantly, getting the US to react quite badly, killing millions in Iraq, wasting literally trillions of dollars and creating more extremism. With the Paris attacks the West is over-reacting again.

In this case, the best thing the west could do would be to take in as many refugees as possible, thus depriving ISIS of the people that give its nascent state legitimacy. If you read ISIS communications at all (I read their Tumblrs and Dabiq magazine for lols) you would see that ISIS wants people to come to their land. They do not want people to leave.

Instead the honestly depraved Republican party is saying they should only accept Christians, or that they shouldn’t accept refugees at all. Nevermind that US insanity in Iraq gave birth to this problem, it’s not even in their self-interest. Western countries should be accepting as many refugees as possible.

The scary thing about terrorism is that it works. These big countries get terrified and shit the bed policy wise. And the media doesn’t help. The media give tons of publicity to whoever carries out these attacks and puts them on an equal threat level with big nations or, like, climate change. They feed the troll.

It’s a real global danger, this over-reaction. It’s also messing up my newsfeed.

]]>2indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=199892015-10-28T03:34:01Z2015-10-28T03:34:01ZWe just shipped a new thing at YAMU. It’s called YAMU.tv. As the name implies, it’s a place to watch video. Basically, it’s a page that will always have something fresh to watch, everyday, all from a Sri Lankan perspective.

Design wise, YAMU.tv is a shameless Devour clone. Where we’re putting our effort is into curating and creating the content.

The Content

YAMU stuff

Local Dopeness

Honestly, if you search YouTube most videos about Sri Lanka are from foreigners with GoPros. We don’t produce much of our own stuff. But we will, and there’s already a lot of good stuff out there. Keep an eye on channels like WTF, TechTrack, Odyssey, and iFilm Sri Lanka.

International

Since we’re just embedding stuff, we can also highlight amazing international content like Romesh Ranganathan’s Asian Provocateur. That being a full BBC show released online.

So

Anyways, YAMU.tv’s goal is to be the online TV station for Sri Lanka – a place that collects all this stuff, helps produce it where needed, and basically gives you fresh stuff to watch, every day. So keep an eye on it. That’s where I’m working these days.

]]>3indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=199182015-10-14T09:54:39Z2015-10-14T07:43:41ZHow many cars enter Colombo everyday? 170,000 actually. How many people enter Colombo overall? That would be 1.8 million. Find this and more answers by scrolling down.

These are 2015ish statistics for car/vehicle use in Colombo. The source is this Daily Mirro [sic] infographic, which itself cites the National Transport Commission and Central Bank. Shout out to Thilina Weerawansa.

Vehicles

Total Vehicles

509,248

%

Private

443,586

87.1%

Public/Mass

29,064

5.7%

Goods

36,598

7.2%

Humans

Total Passengers

1,880,777

%

Private

828,788

44.1%

Public/Mass

977,024

51.9%

Goods

74,965

4%

500,000 vehicles enter Colombo every day

… carrying 1.8 million people

Private

Private Vehicles

443,586

Cars

169,448

Trishaws

113,481

Motorbikes

102,783

Vans

57,874

Public

Public/Mass Transport

29,064

Route Bus

21,905

School Vans

4,107

Non-Route Bus

1,470

School Bus

795

Route Bus (On Service)

787

Goods

Vehicles For Goods

36,598

Medium Goods (2 Axle)

16,881

Light Goods

8,940

Delivery Van

3,941

Multi Axle

3,350

Heavy Goods

3,155

Others

331

Passengers: 828,788

Passengers: 977,024

Passengers: 74,965

Analysis

I can basically break the analysis down to one graph. Each private vehicle carries an average of 1.87 people. Each bus carries 33.6 people.

The Solution

The answer is obvious, we need less vehicles carrying more people. That means public transit. The problem is that our public transit is so bad that this isn’t fair, or even really possible.

Changing the bus system involves dealing with a bunch of vested interested (unions, bus owners, government) and will be as complicated as American health care. We do have a rail network which is under-utilized, and the government has tendered for urban rail, but that wouldn’t start until 2019. For more on how messed up the current rail system is, read Yudha.

In the meantime, it’s basically just shit out there and we’re getting more and more cars on the road, 14,000 units in September 2015, a 400% increase from last year. There are too many cars and it’s slowing down everyone – average speeds are 17 kmph if you’re lucky. The Police have basically left Battaramulla for dead.

Things have gone super-bad in the past few months and something’s got to change. This traffic, besides being annoying, will actually cost us billions if not trillions in lost productivity and economic growth if we don’t invest intelligently now.

BuzzFeed News, which has really invested in investigative journalism, has interesting coverage of international dodginess involving the Rajapaksas. It’s interesting because it shows the wasteful and rent-seeking way that government operated. In this case, SLT was forced to invest $10 million in a shell company which did little besides pay a Rajapaksa nephew over 7 lakhs a month.

The BuzzFeed investigation is wide-ranging, connecting everything from Lyca Mobile to David Cameron. The fact that Mahinda is implicated is almost tangential to their broader investigation, but it’s quite interesting to us. As is the fact that Lyca is considering buying Hutch.

What is shows is the standard Rajapaksa practice of crony capitalism, well I wouldn’t even call it that. More like phony capitalism. Rajapaksa’s network was full of people who did nothing (or actually diminished value) and took rent for it anyways.

[Former SLT CEO] Young said he could see no good business reason for SLT having bought into Sky Network: “It was a company that effectively had no assets, had no operations, and had no value – so effectively SLT bought something, paid for it, and it had no value.”

But it had value to Rajapaksa’s nephew Hettiarachchi, who “was given an office, a car, a driver, an expense allowance, and a very generous salary”, said Young. He said Hettiarachchi was paid around $5,000 a month yet had almost nothing to do with the running of the business, turning up to board meetings only once every couple of months. “So we were just forking out of SLT to actually pay his salary and costs, because [Sky Network] wasn’t generating any income.” (BuzzFeed)

To be honest, I’ve never quite understood why Mahinda even did this. His regime was more like the mafia in, say, Goodfellas, than an actual government. The modus operandi of much mafia business is to take over something legitimate, extract as much money from it as possible (running up letters of credit, stealing resources) and then abandon it or burn it to the ground.

With everything from SriLankan Airlines to SLT to any number of smaller deals, people under Mahinda used his protection to just steal, destroying value and public money in the process. The way this works in a mafia is that a chunk of everything you steal is kicked up to the boss, which one sorta has to presume was happening here.

Despite notable improvements (highways, the cleanup of Colombo) the amount of money that Mahinda Rajapaksas mafianomics was extracting out of Sri Lanka was colossal. Thank God he’s out.

Our new government isn’t great (current President Sirisena’s brother is Chairman of SLT and Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake’s brother-in-law is at Sri Lanka Insurance) they’re still not as professionally malignant as the Rajapaksa government.

]]>2indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=199002015-10-06T02:17:17Z2015-10-06T02:16:39ZHere’s an idea I haven’t thought through completely. It’s a public transport system for Colombo.

1. Use Existing Rail

Colombo has existing rail lines that could serve as a metro. There are two parallel north/south lines (along the coast and along Baseline/High Level Road). There’s also one line connecting east/west from Fort through Dematagoda.

If you run another line along Park Road, you have a loop. More on that in #3.

2. Separate Long Distance From Local

You don’t need to catch the Trinco train from Colombo Fort. You can take the metro out to Ragama and catch the long distance train from there. In the same way Kottawa and, I dunno, Moratuwa can be regional spokes heading East and South. That frees up Colombo rail for trains that just back and forth, back and forth – fast.

3. Use The Canals

Battaramulla and Thimbirigasyaya (Colombo 4-5 for our purposes) are not served by existing rail lines. Claiming land to lay rail in Colombo will take years. One option is to run elevated trains through the canals.

Colombo has an extensive canal network flowing north and south from Battaramulla. The Southern line (in blue above) flows straight out to Wellawatte along Park Road. It also connects to Dehiwela and even Bolgoda. The Northern line (in green) goes through Nawala and Dematagoda and has exits at the Beira Lake and Mutwal.

The canals are essential for drainage, but they also provide space that new rail lines could run through. They’re not very deep and it wouldn’t be complicated to build tracks in the middle, unless that’s completely insane.

4. End School Time Madness

Colombo actually has four rush hours, which is two too many. Children do not need to be picked up in individual cars. The government should provide public funded school buses with designated pickup spots. That is, you take and collect your kids from a stop near your home. You do not need to drive into the city center and double-park all over Colombo. Nor do you need to trust them to uncomfortable, hot and dubious school vans. Just big yellow school buses.

5. Nationalize Colombo Buses

The privatization of buses decades ago hasn’t worked. It’s just created cartels that can neither invest nor compete. In Colombo at least, public transit should be literally public. The government should ideally ban private buses from the city and run comfortable, low-rise buses on short and fast routes. Barring that, they should deregulate private buses and let them actually invest and improve services, but I don’t think that’s likely. The best thing for the country (and worst for politics) is to nationalize the bus system in Colombo.

6. Pay For It All Through Congestion Pricing

If anyone still wants to drive into the city, fine. Charge them for it. Use the money to pay for the above.

What do you think?

]]>11indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=198762015-10-02T09:13:51Z2015-10-02T05:49:39ZWhile you were sweating through our power cut, you may have wondered where your electricity comes from, and where it went. Sri Lanka is a water civilization, going back 2,300 years. In modern times, the massive Mahaweli Project produces enough electricity for about 50% of our needs. For the rest, however, we use fire, which we’re not good at. Everything changed when the fire nation attacked.

The Mahaweli Project, now a Ministry under President Sirisena, was clean energy before clean energy was cool. Since then, however, there hasn’t been a big energy plan. There have just been stopgap solutions, essentially generators burning oil, and a few coal plants that are notoriously unreliable.

What’s needed now is a solid energy plan to take us into the next 50 years. I don’t know what that is, but Sri Lankan history since the BCs has been about mastering waters. Our ancestors in Parakrama’s time could dam 75 million square meters and build 10cm gradients across kilometers.

Just look at the network we built. Our ancestors harnessed the water to irrigate their fields. We harnessed it to generate electricity. We used to be really good at this stuff. We could be again. Sri Lanka gets a ton of sunlight and our water management has historically been among the best in the world. We should explore that route rather than coal power plants that don’t work.

]]>3indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=198822015-09-29T09:32:27Z2015-09-29T09:32:27ZRead this in the Daily Mirror today: “The man arrested… was injured when he is said to have slipped on a wet stone while being taken to the metal quarry where he is believed to have hidden the weapon.” Well, really? Strange, he just slipped and fell.

This is just the latest example of people being beaten or dying in custody and the media reporting it as “Ooops”.

But it’s not oops. This guy is suspected of a terrible crime, but he’s not convicted. Even once he is, you can’t just assault him. I don’t know if you’ve ever been arrested, but at those times the state is in control of your body. And it’s scary. Cops cannot be allowed to torture, assault and kill people in custody. Someday you may be arrested, and even if not, this sort of policing is impacting somebody’s husband or child or friend.

It’s not fair, and it also introduces garbage information into our legal system. Torture and assault do not produce good intelligence – crap American TV tropes aside. People confess to anything under torture or under threat and it introduces a ton of lies into an investigation. It’s wrong and it defeats the purpose of actually solving crimes.

If you think it’s not real or it’s just bad people this happens to, you’re sorely mistaken. Sunil Perera used to supply balloons to our family parties. He was wrongly arrested over a bomb threat and he was beaten and killed in custody. He was just a family man that sold balloons.

The Sri Lankan media is part of this problem because, for the most part, they report the police’s side of the story without question, even when it makes no sense. The suspect fled from custody, in handcuffs, and jumped in a canal. The suspect went for a gun while showing cops the scene of the crime and was shot.

That’s the classic trick – taking the suspects to the scene of the crime and killing them there. Who even does that? Why would you take a suspect back to a crime scene? If that is happening for whatever reason they should at least have their lawyer with them, or body cameras on the cops.

There should be consequences if people die in custody and there simply aren’t. Sadly, the media is a big part of the problem. The fact that we read these stupid lies on the front page of a newspaper and go along with it should make us all ashamed.

]]>6indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=198662015-09-28T09:59:57Z2015-09-28T09:59:57ZThere’s something uncanny about an all-island blackout. Everyone’s in the dark, together. Except people with generators.

The weird thing about Sri Lanka is that we’re all essentially on a generator anyways. If you read your electricity bill there’s a clause that says “More than 60% of the electricity distributed among our customers is generated by thermal power stations operated on imported fuels”. That is, we burn oil for electricity, much like a generator.

Our grid is so messed up that we’re lucky we don’t have more power cuts, really. It’s full of festering problems that get attention for a while and then sorta disappear – like the coal power plants that don’t really work, or unspecified technical faults that trip the whole system.

Last night was basically the best time you could have a power cut. The virtuous were already asleep and many didn’t notice. Everyone else had to deal with heat and mocking mosquitos in our ears. Shocking really how much I depend on electricity even to sleep. After about 4 hours the lights came on for me and I finally got some sleep.

This hiccup aside, however, one major long term investment we could make is in power. For the people that hold power, this is something they have to deliver to the people. Electricity and water are state services that have to work or the state has problems. So far we tried to solve this problem with weirdly bid coal power plants that end up having major technical issues, but perhaps we could leapfrog these dirty fuels to something cleaner.

That said, whatever it is, we have to start investing and planning for it now. Even at night, no one wants to be completely in the dark.

]]>3indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=198492015-09-24T19:18:25Z2015-09-24T19:11:48ZAs far as I can tell, Sri Lanka is going to co-sponsor the re-worded UNHRC resolution on itself. Here’s what Ranil said via News First.

We will have a judicial mechanism, a Sri Lanka judicial mechanism, which will include office of a special counsel to inquire and investigate into it and there we will certainly have the help not only of Sri Lankans but of Commonwealth and foreign judges and lawyers, but all that has to be authorized by a law in Sri Lanka, it’s all done according to and under the Sri Lankan Constitution.

We have also stated, and we have all agreed, that we will implement a political solution and bring in the necessary Constitutional measures. So thereby I think one of the biggest issues facing our country in the last 5-6 years has been removed and we can face the future with confidence.

6. Takes note with appreciation of the Government of Sri Lanka’s proposal to establish a Judicial Mechanism with a Special Counsel…

Affirms that a credible justice process should include independent judicial and prosecutorial institutions led by individuals known for integrity and impartiality…

Further affirms in this regard the importance of participation in a Sri Lankan judicial mechanism, including the Special Counsel’s office, of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence lawyers, and authorized prosecutors and investigators;

7. Encourages the Government of Sri Lanka to reform its domestic law to ensure that it can effectively implement its own commitments.

My Comments

The objectionable thing in the earlier resolution was the hybrid court. I don’t see any country agreeing to be judged by some legal system outside of their Constitution, unless they were signed up for the International Criminal Court, which neither the US or Sri Lanka is.

The current resolution seems to call for international support under Sri Lankan law, as far as I can parse it.

Honestly, I wish that Sri Lanka could sponsor a resolution against US or Russian war crimes, but we don’t live in a world of complete fairness like that. At least maybe this process can let us be more fair to our fellow citizens, without compromising our military or sovereignty. I hope.

]]>1indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=198282015-09-24T07:46:46Z2015-09-24T07:46:46ZClimate change is happening – as much as US politicians deny it – and the changing environment will hit Sri Lanka hard. How, exactly?

Check out the projected Negombo inundation in 2025 (yellow) up to 2100 (red).

Negombo

What you can broadly see is Negombo – at the top of the lagoon – basically going underwater pretty soon. Negombo is about 2m above sea level but the landscape is a mix of canals and lagoons, basically water woven throughout the city. Lagoony type cities, of which we have a lot, are going to take serious damage.

Galle

The Galle Fort has survived the tsunami and will likely survive this. The rest of the southern coast may not be so lucky. Unawatuna has already being severely damaged by coastal erosion and human stupidity, it doesn’t look likely to survive, at least not in a form we’d recognize.

As you go further down the coast you can see that the Koggala lagoon would get completely inundated, having effects further inland. Right now all the touristy beach spots along the coast are built basically right up to the beach, so even a slight change will affect everyone.

Colombo

Finally Colombo. The coastline here gets encroached on everywhere, though not catastrophically. We would still have to invest in sea-walling and rather expensive technology to preserve Marine Drive and the main rail line. The Port itself will be impacted, and it looks like the Beira will get an influx of sea water. It seems like sea level rise would affect waters all the way up to Nugegoda.

More

Land Lost

Overall, the island could lose 6,110 hectares of land by 2025, a hectare being about 10,000 square meters, or about 400 perches. This is land mind you, there’s a different figure in the report for land+water inundation. By 2100, the country could lose about 25,000 hectares worth of just land.

To get a sense of it, the losses by 2025 would be enough land to build 122,000 20-perch houses.

So

This post is based on just a cursory reading of that report and a few conversations. I recommend reading the thing for methodology and all, these are after all predictions.

The inescapable fact is that climate change is going to affect Sri Lanka – our people, our tourist industry, our water supply, maybe even our stability. Sea level rise is only one part of this. Changing monsoons affect our agriculture, more intense flooding and storms can kill people, and food insecurity can destabilize entire regions, like Syria.

What To Do

The sad fact is that we didn’t start the fire. Up till 2012, the US was responsible for 26% of Co2 emissions, followed by Europe/Eurasia at 16.4% and China at 10.7%. It’s not our fault, but it is our problem. Developed nations must cut back on their emissions and deforestation for the rest of the world to have any hope.

That said, Sri Lanka is in a unique position to shame the rest of the world into action. Like the cabinet meeting that (since deposed and now jailed) Maldivian President Nasheed held underwater, Sri Lanka is uniquely positioned to make a statement.

For example, with serious investments in solar, wind and hydro energy (of which we have a lot) Sri Lanka could skip coal and fossil fuels entirely when we reform our stagnant energy sector. If we lower taxes or even give rebates for electric cars, our tax structure is such that you could get the majority of the public on electric vehicles by 2025. Our country is small enough and our past policies dumb or non-existent enough that we could essentially reboot as a zero-emissions nation.

That wouldn’t keep the waters away, but it could show the rest of the world that a better way is possible.

]]>12indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=198172015-09-23T04:42:27Z2015-09-23T04:37:37ZThere’s been this picture going on of what the earth would look like without oceans, except it isn’t true. The picture is actually a map of the earth’s gravity. Blue is lower gravity, orange is higher. Guess which spot has the lowest gravity in the world, by far? It’s Sri Lanka.

What this image shows is the density of whatever is under the earth and how that affects gravity. Because our earth isn’t a uniform thing underneath. So apparently whatever is going on under Sri Lanka isn’t that dense.

These are actually few implications of this, however. The gravity difference, as you may have noticed, are imperceptible. They can only be detected by two satellites that can detect hair’s breadth changes between themselves. This wonderful looking map has few applications.

You could say that this makes Sri Lanka the idea candidate for a space elevator, but not really. Being near the equator and the adopted home of Arthur C. Clarke are good for that proposition, but you could say that Singapore might be better suited to actually do it.

As it is it’s just a cool map and a rare opportunity to say we’re #1. Fuck gravity!

]]>11indihttp://www.indi.cahttp://indi.ca/?p=198062015-09-18T10:07:58Z2015-09-18T06:56:44ZThe death penalty is not the solution to child abuse and murder. Ending abuse requires a lot more work than typing KILL THEM on Facebook – everything from reducing poverty to improving policing and the courts. To focus on the last stage of that process – the punishment – and acting like that is the solution is not correct.

I’ll discuss the death penalty and child abuse separately because they’re not actually related.

The Death Penalty

An Imperfect System

I don’t know if you’ve ever been arrested or in court, but it’s obviously not a perfect system, especially in Sri Lanka. The idea that people are crying out for the perfect punishment (death) from an imperfect system is wrong. This also gets to my broader point – that people are focusing on the punishment rather than the process.

In Sri Lanka the police routinely use beating and torture to extract confessions. There are cases where the parents of abducted children have been beaten. Beyond that, our handling of forensic evidence is not good and I’m not sure that we use any proper rape kits at all. The possibility of mob ‘justice’ or personal vendetta putting an innocent person on trial is high. The lack of solid physical evidence for this type of crime also makes the probability of error high as well.

Given that the process is so flawed, you have a huge risk of someone innocent being killed. How is that justice? How is that fair?

Our Values

Honestly, I won’t even get into the broader moral side of it besides to say that Sri Lanka cannot retain an executioner. They all quit. Of all the people calling for the death penalty, none of them wants to take the job.

The Actual Problem

I think people call for the death penalty for the same reason that it is inherently unfair. It’s a paradox. People do not trust the police and the courts, so they call for death. But that sentence has to be carried out by the police and courts that you don’t trust in the first place. It may make emotional sense, but it doesn’t actual work, unless you’re calling for mob justice which has the same problem. How much do you trust the mob?

You can’t ask for the perfect punishment from an imperfect system. It’s unsatisfying, but true. If you actually want to address the problem, you have to do the painstaking work of fixing the system.

However, when you see crimes like this you just want to find the perpetrators and thrash them. Crimes like this throw the balance of the world well out of whack and you want to see it put right. However, the nature of the crimes is also such that there is usually little physical evidence (murder yes, but rape not so much) and you’re dealing with children, who have numerous issues as witnesses. Add in the fact that the police and courts are poorly resourced and often dubious themselves and you have a situation where justice is delayed and denied.

That frustration and anger at this is strong, and it leads to calls for the strongest penalty – death. What that emotional response elides, however, is the fact that you’re depending on the same broken system to deliver the penalty. It doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work.

The Actual Solution

We have situations where the mother and sometimes both parents are working in the Middle East in order to make money, at the risk of their kids being abused. We have cops which women and children don’t feel comfortable talking to. We have situations where abuse is within the family, sometimes even known within the family, and we don’t have education or counseling to even give better information. We don’t have shelters for women or children to escape to, and we don’t even have people they can talk to.

Child abuse happens everywhere – houses rich and poor – but the risk factors for poor children are just much higher. So, in addition to targeting the specific problem, we have to also look at poverty if we’re serious about this issue.

At the same time, however, there does need to be specific education across the country about rape, child abuse and gender issues – and that includes educating the cops and judges. Law enforcement also needs training and equipment for proper forensic investigations.

In the immediate term, however, the best thing would be if people funded and manned a call center where people could simply ask for help. And a physical place where they could escape to. Because there are countless situations even now where abuse is going on and people feel like there’s nowhere they can go.

Killing whoever the cops collar and push through our sausage grinder of a system won’t actually solve these problems. If we’re thinking about the victims rather than the perpetrators, we have to think of making a better life more than a swift death.

Lead image via Amnesty International. I don’t think we really want to join China and Saudi and much of Africa in this death penalty thing.